The "But we waterboard our own troops!" objection

With respect to your question, asking if "waterboarding" is torture is sort of like asking if "sex" is rape. Precisely the same physical actions can, in different contexts constitute radically different acts. A man can have sex with his wife and it can be an act of love. A man can force his wife down onto the bed against her will and it can be the gravely immoral act of rape. In the case of military training, the whole point of subjecting people to waterboarding is to *build them into better and stronger men*: to humanize them. In waterboarding prisoner, the whole point is to terrorize the prisoner, dehumanize him, and break him down into something like a frightened animal. That's part of the double-think involved in justifications for waterboarding and other forms of torture. On the one hand, we are told is "really works" because it has the victim begging in no time. On the other, we're told it's not torture.

36 comments:

I've wondered if the modified SERE stuff wasn't intentionally chosen to be our roster of torture techniques on purpose, based on the "we do it to our own troops" -- equivocating on the word "it", of course, as this argument always does -- "therefore it can't be wrong" theory.

Jasper doesn't even seem to grasp that the person you are degrading to an animal is not even certain to be a mass murderer. He might, like Dilawar, be a guy who happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time when a police sweep grabbed him. Or maybe he was a member of a rival clan who got turned over to the CIA as part of a local feud and denounced as a "terrorist". He might, like Maher Arar, be a guy who made the mistake of flying while Arab. But they all wind up tortured and Dilawar wound up murdered. Jasper not only defends grave evil against Bad Guys from Central Casting, he defends the torture and murder of completely innocent people. That's cowardice, not manliness. Indeed, Mr. Dube is such a coward he can't even sign his real name to his opinions.

"You do realize you are advocating grave evil, right? That the soul of the man who terrorizes the mass murderer is just as dead as the soul of the mass murderer?"

what's the alternative Tom? Mark? standby while innocents die? Public officials have a moral obligation to protect citizens, this id also in the CC. You say there are other ways of getting information quickly? what are they?

For what it's worth, I don't think I've said that. I've long understood that there are realizable circumstances in which there are no morally good choices that will avoid really bad things from happening.

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense.

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense."

"Yes, but WB and enhanced interrogation is not one of them. I don't agree with you that these fall under torture."

Why not?

Waterboarding fits the definition established by the UN Convention Against Torture (to which the US and Vatican are signatories) and has been ruled as such by the US Courts, Military courts, the US Army Field Manual, etc.

And why is "permanent damage" necessary for it to be torture? The catechism does not require permanent damage for it to be torture, neither does the UN Convention Against Torture, the Geneva Conventions, US Law, the Army Field Manual, etc.

"but, let's say that I lose my soul to save innocent lives. Then so be it."

Himmler used to make the same sorts of arguments, calling the men of the SS to have the "courage" to commit war crimes. It's a hellish inversion of the virtue of fortitude to identify naked rebellion against God with fortitude.

You understand that this is God's Law, not a rule in a game, right? This isn't committing a foul in basketball to prevent a lay-up, where you might purposely "break" a rule, since the penalty is better than what would otherwise happen.

Out own salvation is The Game. There is no greater cause than that. Yes, even saving the lives of innocents.

Christ Himself said -- "There is no greater love than this -- to lay down one's life for one's friends." Breaking God's law to save innocents is not a "greater love."

It did not take Shea long to compare Mark to Himmler. Way to go bringing up those evil Nazi's. that is always a winner as long as someone does not bring up Hitler on his blog saying the democrats are worse than the nazi's. Democrats 50,000,000 and adding 4 million a day leagally in the USA. Nazi 6 million killed and stopped.

But lets stay on topic of post

Mark Shea said"In the case of military training, the whole point of subjecting people to waterboarding is to *build them into better and stronger men*: to humanize them. In waterboarding prisoner, the whole point is to terrorize the prisoner, dehumanize him, and break him down into something like a frightened animal."

Waterboarding our troops makes them better and stronger men- to humanize them. But then Mark is attacked by Tom with "there are some things that are always wrong to do, regardless of the circumstances." The worse torture everyone seems to whine about is waterboarding. If it is wrong, how can it "humanize" our troops. Seems like Tom makes the point that Shea is wrong.

Shea continues that "in waterboarding prisoner, the whole point is to terrorize the prisoner, dehumanize him, and break him down into something like a frightened animal" which I do not think is the intent. The intent of our people is to cause him to tell us what he knows to save lives. If they did not care about getting information or saving lives, but to dehumanize him and turn him into a frightened animal, then you might have a point. You do not honestly believe that was the intent of any of those quesioning the "prisoner" terrorist do you? If this were true and proven, it would be all over the news. I know of no one that has ever suggested that.

Of waterboarding doesn't work by breaking down the prisoner and dehumanizing, how does it work?

If my wife has a different opinion of where we should go on vacation than I do (or something less trivial, like the preferred course of health care for one of our children), would it be acceptable for me to utilize waterboarding as a tool to cause her to change her opinion? Why not?

It is bogus to say that our only choices regarding prisoners is to waterboard them or do nothing.

If my wife has a different opinion of where we should go on vacation than I do (or something less trivial, like the preferred course of health care for one of our children), would it be acceptable for me to utilize waterboarding as a tool to cause her to change her opinion? Why not?

A good analogy, but I suppose one could duck under the excuse that it is disproportionate. I've asked this elsewhere, and afaik, no one has answered: If waterboarding is acceptable, why not allow local police to train in the technique and use it on criminals to reveal accomplices, learn of upcoming drug deals, locate a kidnapped child, etc? Why not?

"i just realized there are certain men who will not lay down their lives for their fasmily. Thats ok though, that is just how you are..."

I think we can draw a suitable distinction between "lives" and "souls." It is spiritually irresponsible and a sin to lay down my soul, for the Love of others--because if I truly am doing so it is no longer the Love of God I am practicing, but a human concept of love that is out of proportion with what God intended; Love is first directed to God and second to neighbor. It is virtuous to lay down my earthly existence for the Love of others.

What is the Coalition for Clarity?

"...I reiterate that the prohibition against torture “cannot be contravened under any circumstances...”" Pope Benedict XVI

In the political climate in which we find ourselves at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Catholics are grappling with confusing messages as to the morality of torture. Lost in political and often partisan debates is the clear voice of the Church, who has called torture evil, and who teaches with conviction the truth that a captured enemy combatant, political prisoner, or other opponent does not lose his human dignity or his right to humane treatment.

The contributors and members of the Coalition for Clarity believe with the Church that torture is intrinsically evil, a violation of our Christian duty to treat all men as our neighbors and of their right to be treated humanely and with dignity regardless of their status. We hope by discussing this issue and providing links to resources supporting Church teaching that this blog will help to bring clarity to the issue of torture and to our duty as members of God's family to oppose its use in all circumstances.

Because we seek the clarity of Church teaching on all issues, we also hope to discuss and reflect on any issue pertaining to human life and dignity, but especially those issues where the possibility that the Church's teaching is not being presented clearly exists.

It is one thing to repeatedly ask what torture is in order to get at the truth. It is quite another to repeatedly ask what it is in order to obfuscate the truth.

Sean P. Dailey

The Catechism on Torture

"2297Kidnapping and hostage taking bring on a reign of terror; by means of threats they subject their victims to intolerable pressures. They are morally wrong. Terrorism threatens, wounds, and kills indiscriminately; it is gravely against justice and charity. Torture which uses physical or moral violence to extract confessions, punish the guilty, frighten opponents, or satisfy hatred is contrary to respect for the person and for human dignity. Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law."

Veritatis Splendor on Torture

Reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature "incapable of being ordered" to God, because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image. These are the acts which, in the Church's moral tradition, have been termed "intrinsically evil" (intrinsece malum): they are such always and per se, in other words, on account of their very object, and quite apart from the ulterior intentions of the one acting and the circumstances. Consequently, without in the least denying the influence on morality exercised by circumstances and especially by intentions, the Church teaches that "there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object". The Second Vatican Council itself, in discussing the respect due to the human person, gives a number of examples of such acts: "Whatever is hostile to life itself, such as any kind of homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and voluntary suicide; whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, physical and mental torture and attempts to coerce the spirit; whatever is offensive to human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution and trafficking in women and children; degrading conditions of work which treat labourers as mere instruments of profit, and not as free responsible persons: all these and the like are a disgrace, and so long as they infect human civilization they contaminate those who inflict them more than those who suffer injustice, and they are a negation of the honour due to the Creator".

USCCB Study Guide on Torture

From the UN Convention Against Torture:

"For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."